Lessons from legalized physician-assisted death in Oregon and Washington

Résumé

Four states have defined a legal pathway for their residents to choose physician-assisted death (PAD). The Oregon Death with Dignity Act was passed by citizen's initiative in 1994 and, after a series of legal challenges, enacted in 1997. In 2008, through a voter-initiated referendum, Washingtonians passed an almost identical law (Pisto & Sanford, 2010). In 2009, the Montana Supreme Court held that a terminally ill, mentally competent patient's consent to physician aid-in-dying protected the physician against a charge of homicide (Supreme Court of the State of Montana, 2009). In 2013, Vermont became the fourth state to legalize PAD, the first to use the traditional legislative process. No other form of PAD—that is physician prescription and patient consumption of medications for the sole purposes of causing death—is legal in the United States at this time, though studies support that in other states physicians prescribe medications to hasten death. In this chapter I review the epidemiology of PAD in states where it is illegal, death with dignity laws in Washington and Oregon, and the evolution of palliative care and hospice in these states. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved) ORÉGON ÉTATS-UNIS SUICIDE-ASSISTÉ LÉGALISATION JURIDIQUE